Airlines - just 2% of the carbon emission problem? #airlines #greenhouse

There's a great article here in the EthicalCorp magazine that touches upon much of what is wrong with the airline industry and how it shapes up to solve some of the issues, especially the carbon-waste problem. However there is much more under the surface that needs to be thought through too. It's a bit like the car industry, in that just one variable - fuel use - gets the focus. So we tend to get bogged down in semantics about fuel efficiency per seat and forget about the bigger picture.

As with road traffic, air traffic demands that a vehicle is built from a diverse set of raw materials; that substantial (often public) infrastructure is laid on for these vehicles and that whole sub-industries are developed in support of designing, researching, testing, maintaining and operating these vehicles. There are specialist mechanics, training institutes, designers and builders. There are airports and terminals, hangars and hardstanding. It's an awful lot of concrete, aluminium and steel, much of it brought to site by carbon fuels and smelted by carbon-emitting energy... so when you add up the consequential emissions they are far, far greater than the simple fuel emission. (Not forgetting also that aircraft disperse much of their fuel-based carbon output at altitude, not just at ground level, and spread it around unlike any other form of transport.)

But as is the case for road transport we choose to look only at the variable - our fuel load. Now this clearly is a better bet for the airlines than it is for the car makers - airlines at least want to maximise operating profit and are under constant pressure to maximise passenger and freight loadings. Unlike a private car user, no airline wants to fly empty airliners around just for fun. And it is important to minimise fuel use, anyway. But we never seem to want to address the remainder - the infrastructure. We turn a blind eye to it because in our hearts and minds we want big, bustling airports, we like to travel, and we like new planes better than the old ones. Overall, we like to get somewhere - anywhere - quicker rather than slower. And planes fit the bill.

Or do they? If carbon emissions truly matter, both as a contribution to climate change and to acidification of our oceans, perhaps we need to question everything - from aviation to fast trains, from private cars to bicycles - and be prepared to make some really big changes. Until we get serious about it we are just playing around the edges.